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I’ve Been on Facebook for Almost 10 Years – NaBloPoMo Day 21

I realized today that I’ve been “on Facebook” since 2004. For those of you who are counting….that’s ten {10} years next year. {Let that sink in} Ten. Years. Ten years of friending and defriending people, poking, posting and wasting time on a website.

I know I joined in 2004 because I remember when I first learned about Facebook pretty specifically. It was Halloween weekend, and I was visiting friends in Boulder at CU since I had just transferred to Iowa that year. In my friend’s Delta Gamma sorority house, the girls were talking about Facebook and showing me how it worked. They had JUST gotten “access” at CU, and I remember being jealous and hoping that Iowa would have access soon. For those of you who don’t remember, that was when your college or university had to be authorized to use Facebook, and you were required to use a school email address to sign up. When I first learned about it, it was called “The Facebook” and the login page looked something like this:

The Facebook….I bet these jerks got Facebook before we did at Iowa!

And the profiles looked like this:

Hey there Mr. Zuckerberg! Who knew you’d become a friggin’ billionaire!

It obviously didn’t take long before it really took off, and soon my friends at private colleges, and then community colleges could join, and BAM–my “friend” list just kept growing. Between transferring schools, being a sorority, and knowing a lot of people in high school, I had hundreds of “friends” in no time. I remember having to try REALLY hard to get my roommates to sign up. At first they weren’t interested…..then they gave in and we all became obsessed.

Back in 2004/2005, the majority of what my friends posted was about bar crawls, finals, sorority rush, or part time jobs. Back then I was still using disposable cameras, so I’d have to get the CD-ROM disk add-on when I developed my camera at a drug store so I could post them on Facebook. There weren’t ads, or “suggested pages” or parents/grandparents/employers to worry about seeing your stuff. At one point I was even “married” to my best friend. For like two years. We thought we were hilarious…and even though we’re both married now {for real, to men}….the nickname “wifey” has stuck.

But Facebook evolved…..people complained when the site got it’s first “face lift.” People vowed to quit! Strike! PROTEST! But they didn’t. Then they opened the flood gates, and took away the college student requirement, and READY OR NOT HERE CAME THE REST OF THE WORLD.

Young, Old, Medium aged…..Facebook, obviously, is for everyone now. Around the country, around the world, people know Facebook. And people will post anything and everything on Facebook. These days, if I go a week without seeing wedding pictures, a proposal, or a pregnancy announcement I start to think my newsfeed is broken. And don’t even get me started on the amount of baby pictures that are posted on a daily basis. Don’t get me wrong. I love babies. And I love staying caught up with my family and friends near and far. But there comes a point when the over-sharing can get to be too much.

I mean, It’s been 10 years next year. That’s for sure the longest relationship I’ve ever been in. And every once in awhile, I start to think it’s time to move on. Last week, someone at work wanted to add me to his Facebook friends. He searched my name while I nervously stood behind him, hoping my privacy settings would hold up and keep me anonymous. It worked, and he couldn’t find me. Bullet Dodged.

I’m not cancelling my account yet {heck, maybe I never will}, but it sure crosses my mind from time to time…..

Are you sick of Facebook and over-sharing? Or am I the only one who gets tired of it?